The making of The Big Event blog banner …

The most common query I’ve received since the launch of The Big Event three weeks ago (and by “most common,” I mean “twice”) is the story behind the movie marquee in the blog banner. I’m guessing that most assume we somehow did it with Photoshop — as opposed to finding a real movie theater with old school lettering, getting permission to write our own message and standing in the middle of a dangerous intersection to photograph it.

Next time we’ll try Photoshop.

I’ve been planning The Big Event in one form or another for more than two years, and got the idea for the banner on maybe the second day. Once I received the green light to go forward from my bosses this summer, I recruited Chronicle page designer and fellow video game critic Erick Wong, who lives in the neighborhood, appreciates old theaters and was willing to do this basically for nothing. This is our story …

I’ve never been secretive about my appreciation of the Grand Lake Theater. It’s a beautiful well-maintained old Art Deco theater near Lake Merritt in Oakland that has survived despite the best efforts of the local cineplexes to force it out of business. Owner Allen Michaan is constantly fighting City Hall and other forces conspiring to make it next to impossible to run a business in the area, because that’s what it takes for an independent theater owner to stay alive. And, I learned when I wrote this profile last year, he does all of this without taking a paycheck.

I asked if we could “borrow” his marquee for 15 minutes the next time they’re switching movies around, he said “yes,” and put me in touch with the theater’s manager C.J., who set it up for a Thursday late afternoon — when the lettering is changed for Friday’s movies.

I sort of assumed that I’d have to do the lettering myself, and was relieved when these two guys came out with a 12-foot ladder. As someone who spent way to much time celebrating the tracksuit in my first blog, I felt like it was a good omen when it got a little chilly, and they busted out matching yellow and red Adidas warmups.

Note the intersection. It’s one of the busiest in this part of Oakland, and we had to basically stand in the middle of it to get the photo. More on that later.

This is Erick, posing with one of the letters. He was a bit of a cultural anthropologist about this, because he used to work in a movie theater and would set up the marquee there. His job sounded a lot like the one Mark “Rat” Ratner had in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” We had a nice discussion about the merits of the ladder that the Grand Lake uses versus the suction cup-on-a-long-stick method that Erick’s theater used.

Updated! I asked Erick about his movie working experiences in an e-mail, and received this response:

“I worked as an usher at the Whittwood Krikorian 10 for about a year in ’95-96. If you worked a Thursday 6-10 shift, there was a good chance you’d have to work the marquee with that damn suction cup on a stick. The letter “I” would never quite stick, and the worst night was having to take down “A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE” and put up “THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS” (or maybe it was the other way around).”

We had to wait until it got a little darker, so Erick got a hot dog next door to the theater and we discussed how we would shoot the marquee without getting killed. This corner (behind me in this photo) is very busy, and people tend to whip around the corner and head eastbound on Grand without regard for life or limb. The angle we needed required us to shoot the marquee while squatting in the crosswalk about 25 feet from the safety of the sidewalk.

So basically we would wait for a green light, run into the intersection, and one guy would quickly shoot three or four photos while the other guy watched for cars.

Erick managed to capture this process on video, which I’ve embedded below.

Here’s the finished product, from across the street. We had to ask the guys to shift the letters about two feet to the side — a high maintenance request that they rolled with without protest. They were extremely patient.

It probably helped that we didn’t go forward with my initial plan to call the blog “Peter Hartlaub’s The Big Event” (yes, I’m actually that egotistical …). The final nail was the impossibility of fitting in the blog banner without looking cluttered. So you’ll just have to remember, if the Chronicle ever fires me and tries to get someone else to write The Big Event, this @#$% was my idea first.

“THE BIG EVENT” lettering was probably up on the marquee for less than 20 minutes, but I’m guessing we caused confusion for at least one driver passing by. (“What big event???”) I thought it looked great, although I was a little worried about the shading between the “G” and the “E,” caused by the support beams for the marquee. Erick said he could take care of it in post-production.

We took close to 100 photos. I liked the idea of the Grand Lake sign just barely peeking into the banner, so it would be sort of like a puzzle for readers. Erick picked a good photo, cleaned it up a little, and I was thrilled with the result.

The biggest debate was over the lettering in the “Your concierge for culture in the Bay Area” part. We switched it three or four times, going back and forth between lettering that we carried over from sister blog The Poop, and the current script which is actually Erick’s handwriting.

The banner was the final step before launch, but we ended up waiting another month and a half while the company updated its blogging platform. I’m extremely happy with this finished product. I love movies, old theaters, Oakland and practical effects, and wanted a banner that was shot from a real place — as opposed to something generated entirely by a computer or with clip art.

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A huge thanks to Erick, Allen, CJ and the two marquee letter guys, who did the most dangerous/strenuous work and I somehow failed to get their names. Please check out the Grand Lake if you get a chance, even if you live far away. It’s a destination theater and tied with the Pixar screening room for the best 3D that I’ve seen in the Bay Area. Most 3D at multiplexes is extremely dim, but the Grand Lake paid extra for the dual projection system. (They also have an organ player on Friday and Saturday nights.)

And thanks for reading this blog. We’ve had an incredible month so far, both in terms of page views and comments. I’m looking forward to the rest of the year.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder/editor of The Big Event. He takes requests. Contact him at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub. Follow The Big Event on Facebook.